Listen to the Water | FULL SERIES | Wattys 2022 Shortlist | ✔

(19) Taiki: City Core

The chill that grips me at Sar's realization locks up every part of my body that wasn't tense already. Too old to read? We can't have that happen. We brought Sar to Roshaska on the gamble that it would pay off. That we'd get what we needed, and not have to come back here again. If they become unable to read the records as far back in time as we need to go, we'll have wasted more than six days that we could have spent finding someone better equipped to come.

We should have gotten a Shalda scholar from the start.

"I can still read enough of it to make sense of it," signs Sar. I think they can see how distressed I am, because they're eyeing me sideways like they do when they're not sure how I'm going to respond. "And that will probably continue for a while. Some parts of the language do stay the same over time, and the changes don't tend to happen very quickly. I'll be able to keep reading. It just won't be as detailed."

We need that detail. Well, we need nuance—enough of it to determine if the last times Roshaska and Rapal were destroyed were the result of stopping a war, or failing to stop it. It feels like such a simple goal when I say it to myself like that, but if Sar's interpretation of these stories becomes fuzzier over time, nuance may be the first thing to go.

On the other hand, we have no way to know until we actually get there. There's no guarantee we'll even find the records we're looking for in here, and even if we do find them, there's a chance they won't be impacted by Sar's deteriorating comprehension. I tell myself that over and over, but there's a stubborn part of me that's angry at the ocean now, for wearing down those older stories on the sides of the pinnacle that supports Rapal. Those are the ones whose writing likely matches what we're looking for, and that writing has been unreadable for centuries. Nobody there can study what they can't read.

A hand on my back startles me back to reality. Yaz gives me a nudge forward, indicating that we need to keep moving. I take the lead again. Sar doesn't follow me directly this time. They move from wall to wall, scanning the writing there with a furrowed brow. They keep stopping altogether. At one point, Casin asks whether we should be moving any faster.

"I'm trying to pick up what I can," is Sar's reply. That relieves my anxieties a little. Sar's trying to catch the ways the words are changing as we move back in time, so that they have a better chance when we find the oldest writing. I begin to watch them with half an eye, matching my pace to theirs. We must be more than halfway to the city core by now. The maps keep pointing us further, and there's nothing I can do but follow.

I don't like feeling so useless. I want to pray again, but now that we're actually here, I'm not comfortable calling Andalua's name into being, nor translating Karu prayers. I scour my memory for Shalda ones that don't mention the ocean goddess, but there are almost none. It hurts to know we've put so much faith in Andalua. The consequences are all around me here, in a city she almost certainly destroyed.

Then we turn a corner and find the way ahead blocked once again.

That means we're getting close. I perk up as something to do presents itself, and tell the others to wait. Yaz comes with me as we locate the nearest upward shaft and wind our way up through the city. It's only a few hundred heartbeats before the brush of a current meets my skin. Somewhere above us is open water. By my own calculation, the top of the city should be nowhere near this close, which means we're under the great collapsed hall sunk into its center. We're almost at the core.

We return to the others. My body buzzes with nervous energy as I find a way around this collapsed section, wanting to move everywhere and nowhere all at once, wanting to be useful, wanting not to get in Sar's way. When we start out again, they move slower than ever. I can tell it's getting harder to read the words on the walls. I want to make my own prayers that Sar will be successful when we need it most, but I don't know who to pray to, and nothing feels right. In that moment, I'm actually jealous of Ande. Her people have their own island deity, and from what I've heard her say about him, he's never wreaked the kind of destruction Andalua has. I don't care if they made him up like the Karu believe. I envy the comfort Ande must get from her prayers.